You do NOT have to run the program as root. We'll automate this for the next release, but this'll get you running in the short term.

Other stuff:

I took a good portion of the day to clean up some open source projects that have been simmering on the back burner for awhile. SDL_sound is now at version 1.0.1 (a final stable release before new development can begin), and I released my OpenAL on the world.